Based On The Legend Not The Movie Mulan - Tumblr Posts
Mulan: A City Girl
(this was done as a commission for @significantfoliage :D)
Her mother complains that they’re country folk, that their families were born and died in farmland, and that they should do the same. She says this so often that her husband has stopped responding to her entirely.
Mulan doesn’t know what growing up in the country would have been like. She remembers it vaguely, like a dream. When she was a little girl, her father was summoned to the capital to serve the emperor as his one of his advisers.
Her father couldn’t have denied the emperor, so Mulan doesn’t understand her mother’s anger.
But it doesn’t matter, for she grows up in the city, grows up running through the palace, constantly trailing after her father and getting underfoot.
She’s a beautiful child, with large expressive eyes and a waterfall of shiny black hair. Her face is as pale as the moon, and her lips a ruddy red. Many people comment on it, saying that she’ll surely make a beautiful bride one day. Her father says nothing, reacting with stony silence until they change the subject.
Little girls grow up to be brides. She knows that.
But in the capital, she thinks there are so many things more interesting to do than becoming a bride. Like riding horses, and playing board games, and pestering her father into teaching her how to properly hold a sword.
Like archery.
She watches the men practice in the courtyard for hours, arrow after arrow hitting their targets. She wants to be able to do that, but her father says she’s not strong enough yet, that she has to wait to learn.
She’s ten years old, and she feels plenty strong. If her father expects time to dissuade her, then he’s sorely mistaken. But she can wait. The other advisors won’t help her learn how to hold a sword, but they do play Go with her, and that’s almost as good.
Mulan is awake even earlier than usual one morning, and she sees a boy a few years older than her on the practice field.
He’s very bad.
It’s no wonder he’s practicing when no one else can see him.
She walks up behind him, and he’s not very observant either, because she’s nearly on top of him when she says, “You’re holding it all wrong.”
He jumps nearly a foot in the air, and she covers her mouth with her sleeve to hide her giggles. His eyes narrow and he holds out an arrow threateningly, like he’s ready to stab her in the neck with it. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I am Hua Mulan,” she says. “I was walking, and saw you. You are so pathetic, that I thought I might try and help you.”
He scowls, lowering the arrow. “What do you know? You’re just a girl.”
For the first time, anger sparks inside her. Arrows held at her throat are fine, but insulting her skill is quite another matter.
The fact that she has no skill to speak of isn’t the point.
“Give me your bow and arrow, and I’ll show you,” she says heatedly.
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